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Blondie, 4/3/24

Everyone makes fun of young people for being addicted to social media, but the truth is that old people are also addicted to social media. Which is fine! It’s designed to be addictive! But it’s an underexplored cultural phenomenon and honestly I’m glad that Blondie offers insight into that world. Today’s strip makes the misstep of putting Dagwood’s teen son Alexander front and center, though. Look, I too am constantly annoyed by the “reels” that Instagram and Facebook put into my feed. But I’m a 49 year old man! The teens today are not on Facebook and barely on Instagram. They’re being annoyed by new irritating features on some other site and/or app entirely, probably TikTok but also maybe something I haven’t even heard of yet. And why should I have? Whatever it is, it’s quite frankly none of my business.

Daddy Daze, 4/3/24

Oh, wow, big news: we all suspected the Daddy Daze baby was going to kill the Daddy Daze daddy one of these days, and now it’s finally happening! Not sure I would’ve guessed that he was going to do an elaborate pseudo-legal ritual beforehand, but you know what, that tracks.

Beetle Bailey, 4/3/24

Sure, I make fun of how newspaper comics are hidebound and traditional all the time, but some traditions I like, and one of them is that Beetle Bailey should never, ever know what “horny” feels like. That’s General Halftrack’s job! C’mon now.

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Dennis the Menace and Blondie, 4/1/24

Is there any “holiday” more vile and unpleasant than April Fool’s Day, which is mostly marked by “pranks” perpetrated by the least funny people alive? These tricks generally take one of two very simple forms, as illustrated neatly in these two strips: making someone believe that something bad is happening when it really isn’t, or making someone believe something good is happening when it really isn’t. Does anyone enjoy either? I’m going to say no.

Dustin, 4/1/24

The “making someone believe something good is happening” one is a particularly dangerous game, as Dustin is discovering, especially if you put a lot of work into it! Look at how mad his father is in panel two. He’s about to put his son out on the street and have him carry those presumably empty boxes to his nonexistent new apartment.

Pluggers, 4/1/24

Today’s Pluggers is just a baffling and confusing series of decisions (is Smokey a plugger? “April Phurst”? The Philippines?) meant to keep you completely off-kilter with no real resolution, and in that sense is the only good April Fool’s Day strip. Kudos.

Mary Worth, 4/1/24

The worst prank of all, however, has been perpetrated by Mary Worth on all of us. We were all looking forward to Dawn’s hilariously disastrous reunion with her cold, withholding mother, but instead we’re going to get … Wilbur realizing his life is empty and meaningless? WE ARE ALREADY WELL AWARE OF THIS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO WE NEED IT REHASHED OVER THE NEXT SIX TO FIFTEEN WEEKS

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Blondie, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Blondie: if you start a comic where Dag gets an alert on his phone that it’s time for a “ritual,” and Herb walks over looking depressed saying “I might as well get it over with,” the rest of the strip had better involve a grisly human sacrifice, part of some dark suburban magic to propitiate the tutelary deity of lush, even lawns, and not some bullshit about borrowing tools or whatever.

Dick Tracy, 3/24/24

OK, look, syndicated newspaper comic strip Dick Tracy: I know doing overly reverent takes on classic adventure comic strips is, like, your whole thing, but you’re going to have to decide whether the action you depict takes place during an era where undercover FBI agents would have no choice but to leave their newborn daughter at a local orphanage as they begin their most dangerous mission yet, or whether it takes place during an era when cordless phones exist. You can’t have it both ways!